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Booming US business keeps Deutsche Telekom on track

Deutsche Telekom has been able to increase its profit due to flourishing operations in the US and the sale of mobile frequencies. The German communications giant confirmed its full-year outlook despite high write-downs.

Thanks to the sale of mobile telephone frequencies, Deutsche Telekom managed to increase its second-quarter bottom-line profit by one third year-on-year, logging net earnings of 711 million euros ($952 million) for the April to June period, the company announced Thursday.

However, income would have dropped by a fifth, not counting those one-off effects, Deutsche Telekom admitted, mentioning higher write-downs and large-scale investments in the US.

But it was the company's booming operations in North America that secured it a decent operating profit of 4.4 billion euros in the second quarter, mainly due to successful business from its subsidiary T-Mobile US, which posted a 17 percent surge in earnings.

Looking ahead with confidence

Deutsche Telekom did not provide any more details on its stake to sell in T-Mobile US after a
thwarted deal with US rival Sprint and a purchase offer made by French competitor Iliad.

Sprint had announced it could not buy the stake because of anti-trust considerations, with regulators in the US wary of a merger between the third and fourth-largest telecom providers in the country.

Deutsche Telekom said Thursday it had no reason for changing its full-year outlook, saying operating profit would come in at 17.6 billion euros, with 8.7 billion euros already secured in the first half of 2014.